alt Hacker NewsIt isn’t, but the whole night thing is a bit of a problem and storage isn’t there yet at grid scale, but it’s coming.
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toomuchtodo • today at 12:06 AM
Only ~15% of power in the US comes from coal currently, and it continues to decline as each of the last remaining coal generators are retired. Politics props it up, but it will eventually be gone. Five years maybe, ten years tops. Focus on forward looking tipping points for step change death spiral progress (when minimum coal mining, transportation, and generation minimum limits are breached).
https://www.sierraclub.org/coal/coal-plant-map
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-trump-has-overseen-more...
Coal doesn't even compete with just solar, those aren't your two options.
Coal competes with literally everything else, and it loses to every single one of them. It's a terrible, terrible fuel. Burn natgas instead and you're already magnitudes better off.
Coal only exists today in the US because our politics is broken beyond belief.